Solitude Is The Place Where We Can

Fear Is The Great Enemy Of Intimacy. Fear Makes Us Run Away From Each Other Or Cling To Each Other But Does Not Create True Intimacy.

Although We Tend To Think About Saints As Holy And Pious, And Picture Them With Halos Above Their Heads And Ecstatic Gazes, True Saints Are Much More Accessible. They Are Men And Women Like Us, Who Live Ordinary Lives And Struggle With Ordinary Problems. What Makes Them Saints Is Their Clear And Unwavering Focus On God And God's People.

A Happy Life Is A Life For Others.

Through Compassion It Is Possible To Recognize That The Craving For Love That People Feel Resides Also In Our Own Hearts, That The Cruelty The World Knows All Too Well Is Also Rooted In Our Own Impulses. Through Compassion We Also Sense Our Hope For Forgiveness In Our Friends' Eyes And Our Hatred In Their Bitter Mouths. When They Kill, We Know That We Could Have Done It; When They Give Life, We Know That We Can Do The Same. For A Compassionate Person Nothing Human Is Alien: No Joy And No Sorrow, No Way Of Living And No Way Of Dying.

Often We Come Home From A Sharing Session With A Feeling That Something Precious Has Been Taken Away From Us Or That Holy Ground Has Been Trodden Upon.